After
by Jessica R Vance
Summary: "The car takes curves like someone double-dared it to, reckless and rash and yet they don't worry. There is trust here, however misplaced it may seem at times." Rated M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1: Satsuma

They drive fast away from Tokyo, because Haruka doesn't know the meaning of the latter half of "speed limit." Wind skating across the bonnet makes messes of their hair, but Michiru is well accustomed to multiple brushings and Haruka doesn't even notice. The car takes curves like someone double-dared it to, reckless and rash and yet they don't worry. There is trust here, however misplaced it may seem at times. It's a miracle, but no one stops them – no one breaks the spell of silence. They don't talk about the question coiled between them, unspoken but not unanswered. Tonight it is yes, finally _yes_, and though neither girl would ever admit it, their hearts lodge in their throats in just the same way.

When they've gone far enough for the night and stop for dinner, conversation is strangely mundane. They don't talk about Sailor Moon or saving the world or what happens from here. They talk about things any pair of teenagers may talk about after leaving what had become their hometown – will people wonder what happened to them? Will they miss anything about Tokyo or Mugen or those five silly girls they'd come somehow to call friends? Michiru spears salad and Haruka stirs her coffee and silence falls in comfortable intervals. Their eyes meet – sometimes by accident, sometimes not – and the candle on the table, its light playing perfectly off of gently curling lips, seems a flawless representation of the _something_ they see in each other's gazes. And although the waitress eyes her with typical interest, Haruka is, for once, nothing but polite. Michiru's oolong tea warms her all the way down.

They choose a modest but clean hotel near the found restaurant and Haruka brazenly requests a one-bed room. Michiru lets her, smiling at the proffered, "Thank you, sir" from the girl at the front desk. Their room is on the third floor. In the lift, they stand side by side, not touching. In the corridor, Haruka walks just slightly on the balls of her feet, a runner waiting for the gun.

Michiru takes an alarmingly long time in the shower.

Haruka sits on the edge of the bed – _their_ bed, she thinks, something in her breast fluttering at the truth of the thought – her fingertips pattering a nervous tattoo against her kneecaps. For all her flirtation and bravado, she has never had a night like this and she can hardly swallow. The linens are soft and cool and white and all she can think about is what will happen on them and between them. She is terrified and excited and ready and somewhere at the edge of all this, she feels fatigue pulling at the corners of her eyes, quite uninvited.

Michiru really does take an _unnecessarily_ long time.

When she emerges, shell-smooth and pink and smelling of satsuma, she finds Haruka sprawled on the bed, one long forearm slung over her closed eyes. She doesn't snore, not really, but her breath comes heavy and deep through her nose as her chest rises rhythmically, drawing Michiru's eye. Fast asleep, because Haruka does nothing slowly.

She considers, for a moment, being irritated. For a longer and much more interesting moment, she considers waking her. She considers sliding her way up her body and bringing her back to consciousness with barely-there kisses and teeth on her exposed collarbone. It's an attractive possibility. But they have played their messy role in saving the world – they have fought with fury and passion and they have died and returned and perhaps they have both earned their rest. So she lies down beside the lank, tired form of her partner, and for now, they sleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Water

Haruka wakes early, because she usually does. The pale morning is just beginning to filter through the split between the heavy, hotel-standard drapes and it casts a single strip of light across the bed and the two of them ensconced there. Haruka's arm is draped across Michiru's hips and she realizes with no little embarrassment that she fell asleep last night. She still wears her jeans and blazer and Michiru is all wrapped up in a silky nightgown, the sort of which is obviously transitory, never meant for sleeping in, only meant to make the journey from the bathroom to the bedroom. Heat flares across Haruka's face as her thoughts coil around themselves and tighten, a spring of impropriety, and she slides her arm away slowly, slowly, and inches out of bed.

In the shower, the warm water spills over her head and down her back. She feels more relaxed than she has in months. She's well-rested, well-fed, well-cared for. She hasn't spent the night in the grip of battle. She rolls her shoulders, testing the muscles there, acclimating herself to feeling _okay_. It's going to take a while. Even in her relaxation she listens to the wind, waits for it to tell her what's coming next. Always ready.

She wraps a towel around herself and shakes her head, droplets dotting the mirror as they abscond from the tips of her sodden hair. Her hand cuts a swath of clarity through the fog and she stares at her face for a few brief moments. She looks the same as she ever did. How is that possible? She has done so much.

When she comes back to the room, she finds Michiru sitting up, legs tucked beneath her beneath the duvet. She's opened the window and is staring out at the morning, the rising sun dipping into the contours of her face. She turns when she hears the door and smiles. It's not quite eight a.m. and she is radiant. Haruka is never quite sure how she does it. "Good morning," Michiru murmurs, nearly inaudible.

"Good morning." Haruka has known her for ages, literally for centuries, through time and space. How is it that she is still the one person who can make her feel anything close to awkward? "I… I'm sorry I fell asleep," she says. She is standing at the foot of the bed. Michiru has not moved, but her eyes follow a drop of water from Haruka's hairline. It travels down her temple, smoothing across her jaw before dropping onto her chest, where it quivers and stills. Haruka is suddenly deeply aware that she is still only wearing a towel. When Michiru smiles, her knees almost buckle beneath her. She perches on the bed's edge to hide it.

"It's all right. You were tired. We both were." Her eyes skate over Haruka's form. "Feeling better?"

Haruka nods, pushing her sopping fringe away from her forehead. "Much." A sea storm is brewing in Michiru's eyes and if Haruka doesn't do something about it soon, she may actually explode. She knows it's just a question of asking, a matter of actually sending the words out of her lungs and into the air, but the propriety she's grown up with won't allow her to be quite as blunt as she needs to be. She nearly chokes. "Michiru -"

Michiru calmly folds the linens away from her lap and slides across the bed toward her. When she takes Haruka's face in her hands, she wipes water from her skin with the pads of her thumbs and whispers, "Yes. Yes."


End file.
